How to Live Free in a Dangerous World

February 5, 2024
In this forceful memoir-in-essays, poet Lawson (This Is Major) shares the lessons they’ve learned from their travels across America and abroad. Lawson divides the book into 17 sections—“On Blackness,” “On Privilege,” “On Love,” “On Liberation,” and more—that range from Zimbabwe to Portugal to the American Midwest. The tone is predictably, though not excessively, poetic: “On Firsts” sees Lawson “attending” a Prince concert in Minneapolis from their mother’s womb, “just a thrum under the heartbeat,” witnessing “a black and brilliant world... a promiscuity that understands destruction.” “On Beauty” depicts Lawson’s nervous sexual awakening in Venice, Italy, describing how “having the language of beauty applied to me would leave me so terribly scared” when their gondolier boyfriend sang to them under their window. “On Dancer” is named for the dog who “poured into like no spirit had before,” helping them through their divorce from an unfaithful Dutch husband while they were living in Bloomington, Ind. No matter the setting, Lawson’s sentences astonish, and while the volume lacks a firm narrative through line, the author’s commitment to unsentimental self-examination is inspiring enough to sustain readers’ attention. The final product is both vivid and galvanizing.